


The Girl in the Bar

by articcat621



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mystery, Not Canon Compliant, Romance, Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship, Time Turner (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 08:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/articcat621/pseuds/articcat621
Summary: James allows the boys to drag him out for a night out. There, he meets a mysterious girl at the bar.





	The Girl in the Bar

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hermione’s Haven’s August 24th #RollADrabble (pairing: Hermione/James and trope: meet cute). Thanks to starrnobella for looking this over.
> 
> Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

James wasn't one for bars. To be completely honest, it was more Peter and Sirius's thing… he and Remus were more the type to sit back and drink at home. Well, Remus would rather be reading, not drinking, but that wasn't the point.

_It'll be fun_, Sirius had insisted.

So, despite the fact that he wanted to lounge in his room and mourn the fact that Lily had chosen Severus over him, he allowed his friends to drag him out. So there he was, sitting on the table in the bar, sipping at his beer. Sirius had selected a Muggle bar to visit, as he found the birds were easier to take home in the Muggle world.

"Care for a game of cards?" Remus asked, breaking James from his thoughts.

"Sure," James responded. Sirius and Peter had disappeared somewhere in the Muggle bar, likely playing pool.

"Great, because I'm bloody bored," Remus complained, pulling the playing cards from his pocket. He quickly shuffled them and dealt a hand to both himself and James.

The two of them played on, the time passing slowly.

Around ten, a new group of people came in, talking at the tops of their lungs. James frowned at his hand – why did people have to talk so _loud_ in bars? No one wanted to hear their conversation – and the look on Remus's face suggested he agreed. James looked up at the group as they passed. There were a couple of guys and three girls, all of them pretty, but one was just... Different. She was short with curly dark hair and was laughing loudly at something her friend was saying. His stomach gurgled uneasily.

He watched them walk up to the bar, and the girl looked back for a moment, catching his gaze. She smiled, and he startled before looking back down at his hand. "Your turn, Moony."

The girl and her friends sat a few tables away from him, and he couldn't help but steal glances at her. She didn't talk that much, but when she did, everyone listened. He wondered who she was to have captured all of her friends' attention so thoroughly.

She looked young, younger than him, and maybe not even old enough to be in there – she never went up to the bar to get drinks, he noticed. She just sat and chatted. Every so often, she would fiddle with a gold chain around her neck.

“Hey, Prongs, you should go talk to her,” Sirius said, suddenly appearing at his side. He flashed him a mischievous grin.

James startled and looked up at him. “What?”

“The cute brunette. She's looking at you, too.”

James shook his head. “No, she's not, she's just thinking I'm a weirdo that keeps staring at her, and it's freaking her out.” Truth be told, he wasn't ready to talk to another girl… Not after Lily crushed his heart so firmly.

“I didn't know you had been practising Legilimency.”

He shrugged, and Sirius rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Prongs, it's been five months. You need to get back out there.”

“But I don't want to,” he muttered.

“Yeah, but you need to. Look, Evans, and you just weren't meant to be… Plus, you're one of the smartest people I've ever met, besides Remus, you can go talk to a girl.”

“This is different."

Sirius rolled his head back against his seat and groaned. “Just get drunk, then! Like the rest of us!”

“I had one drink," James muttered, gesturing to his empty cup. "That's it for me; I need to make sure the rest of you get home safely.”

Sirius rolled his eyes again and started to get up. “Compromise yourself. Get laid. Chill out!”

James ignored Sirius's advice and played another round of poker with Remus for another half an hour, but he still couldn't stop looking at her, and when Sirius dropped a bottle of beer in front of him at close to eleven, he drank it, and then another three in quick succession, until he felt dizzy and couldn't focus on whatever it was Peter was saying. He didn't feel any less nervous, though.

“Okay,” Sirius said, looming over James again. He stank pretty bad of tequila, and James wrinkled his nose. “Now go talk to her.”

“'m more nervous now than before,” James protested.

“Merlin, James, just grow a pair, go over there, and say 'hi'. Look, half of her friends have wandered off, that makes it less bad, right?”

“I dunno,” James mumbled.

"Just go, Prongs," Remus said quietly, putting the cards down. Reaching across, he grabbed James's cards and started to clean up.

“Oh my Merlin,” Sirius muttered, grabbing James by the arm as he pulled him up and out from behind the table. “Get over there!” he said, and shoved James's in the girl's direction.

James stumbled over to her table, and she and her two remaining friends looked up at him expectantly. He stared back at them. _Merlin, say something,_ he thought.

“Hi,” he said, giving her an awkward smile.

“Hello,” the brunette replied, and somehow smiled at him and didn't seem weirded out. James blinked approximately forty times in under two minutes, and she snorted a little. “I'm Hermione; this is Luna and Ginny.” She gestured to her friends.

Luna and Ginny chorused their hellos, and Hermione looked at him expectantly again.

“I'm...” Someone bumped into him as they passed by, and it completely threw off his equilibrium.

Hermione smiled again. “You're pretty drunk; you wanna sit down? I noticed your friend kept serving you earlier.” She nodded to an empty chair next to Ginny. James dropped down onto it and took a deep breath.

“So...” Hermione said, drawing out the syllable.

He smiled, completely smitten. "Hermione," he muttered, savouring the sound of her names on his lips. He stared at her for a few more moments – she was utterly gorgeous. “I'm James,” he finally piped up when he realised she was waiting for him to talk.

Hermione dropped her head and laughed. She subconsciously fiddled with the gold chain around her neck as she met his gaze. "Nice to meet you, James."


End file.
